


Nothing Left

by TraceyLordHaven



Series: Next to Nothing [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Mild Language, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 15:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21448222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TraceyLordHaven/pseuds/TraceyLordHaven
Summary: "I didn’t know it at the time, but I think you were my last chance.  And it didn’t work out.  And that’s it."First attempt ....
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay/Seven of Nine
Series: Next to Nothing [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556821
Comments: 29
Kudos: 57





	Nothing Left

He found her curled up on a chair on the back deck of her house. She was wrapped in an old quilt, watching the Pacific crash against the rocks that lined the nearby shore. A battered copy of Les Misérables lay on the deck at her feet. The air was cold and damp, but she didn’t look uncomfortable.

He watched her for a while. Her hair had grayed, her face held some of the lines he had seen on the Admiral all those years ago in the Delta Quadrant. 

She actually WAS an admiral now, had been since soon after their return. And she was alone, for the moment at least, he knew that. He had made a point of keeping up – and the crew who stayed in touch with him all seemed to relish telling him about any new romantic conquest she’d made. And the FedNews would cover events she attended with different handsome, accomplished men, always breathlessly speculating if the beautiful Admiral had finally lost her heart to someone.

He hated FedNews.

She apparently was in-between conquests at the moment. She hadn’t had a man in her life for a few months. But there was no air of loneliness about her. She didn’t look much like the bitter version of Kathryn he had met all those years before, not that he could see. Staring at her, he thought she looked tired. Falling back into an old habit, he wondered why she was tired and what she had burdened herself with now – then guiltily wondered who was around to ease her burdens.

No. That hadn’t been his job for a long time. He did that for the Captain, not the Admiral. But were they the same woman? He wasn’t entirely sure who she was anymore. And it saddened him.

“Now or never,” he thought, taking a step.

The deck stairs creaked as he approached her.

She turned and looked at him. If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. Her smile was measured, her eyes were cool.

“Chakotay.”

“Hello, Kathryn.”

He sat on a chair a few feet from her.

“Seven is dead,” he said without emotion.

Kathryn gave him a sad smile. 

“I heard. I am very sorry. I was glad to hear that she didn’t suffer long.”

Chakotay looked at his hands.

“Yes, well. We knew the time would come that her cortical node would give out again. The Doctor never found an adequate treatment, and there was no viable spare available this time. But we were all thankful she experienced so little pain.”

Kathryn looked back out at the water.

“I am glad to know that. I hate to think if her lingering in pain.”

Chakotay shifted in his chair, he felt so unsure of himself.

“I wish you could have come last month. She wanted to see you. She … had things she wanted to say to you.”

Kathryn didn’t respond. Chakotay continued.

“I had things – have things – I needed – need – to say to you, too.” 

At this, Kathryn looked up. 

“I doubt seeing me would have made her death any easier for you, or for her. And … I don’t think I needed to hear anything from either of you. A lot of time has passed, for all of us.”

Chakotay sighed.

“I don’t know about that, Kathryn. Seven, she felt she needed to apologize.”

“She had nothing to apologize for,” she replied softly. 

They sat quietly for another minute or two - he, unsure of what to say next and she, content to stay silent. The wind picked up and both shivered slightly.

Kathryn pulled her quilt around her tighter, protection from the chill, and rose from her chair. She said, “It’s gotten pretty cold, I am going to get us some hot tea.” And she went into her house, leaving him to rediscover his train of thought.

This was harder than he expected. Actually, he hadn’t known what to expect. This was a conversation he has imagined repeatedly for years. He had imagined tears, anger, and, occasionally, forgiveness and love.

He wasn’t sure he had imagined himself alone in the cold as she used hospitality as a temporary escape.

Eventually, she came out with a tray containing two mugs, a teapot, and honey. She handed him a mug and stirred a small bit of honey into her own. Then she settled back in her chair, wrapped in her quilt, in much the same position she’s been in when he arrived.

He took a sip of the warm tea.

“This is good, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Chakotay sipped his tea in silence for a little while. Then he set the mug down and without looking at her, he asked, “You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”

She continued looking out into the distance quietly for a moment, then responded.

“It’s not a question of forgiveness, Chakotay. I forgave you the minute I found out about you and Seven. I wasn’t angry then; I am not angry now.”

“Then why didn’t you come see her, come see me?”

Kathryn sighed and shifted in her chair to face him.

“What would that have accomplished?

Chakotay looked down and rubbed his eyes and forehead with both hands. When he spoke again, he sounded tired.

“She wanted to tell you that she and I had been a mistake. I wanted to tell you the same thing. It took us a long time to see it, we were so different. We had turned to each other for companionship, but we were really looking for other people. But I don’t think either of us wanted to admit we had been wrong.”

Kathryn chuckled a little.

“You are both stubborn.”

*Were* stubborn they both thought, remembering that Seven was gone.

“And arrogant. Oh, we were going to prove to everyone that we belonged together. We were going to make Tom lose his bets, make the Doctor eat his words, make B’Elanna apologize for that ugly rant she went on at the Homecoming event, everything.”

Chakotay closed his eyes, wincing at the memories. That fight with B’Elanna had been epic - she started on him when she was in Sickbay recovering from giving birth to Miral. Then it was just a couple of ugly comments. During the debriefings, she went back and forth between cursing at him and the silent treatment. But after B'Elanna's third glass of champagne at the Homecoming event, she lost any measure of control she'd maintained and had actually struck him. When Seven found that out, she immediately hunted down and started cursing B’Elanna, part of some archaic idea of “defending her man.” Tom, Harry, and a couple of the Engineering crew separated them. Chakotay wasn’t in the room at that moment – he had been moping in a corridor after seeing Kathryn leave the event on the arm of a handsome Vice Admiral.

Kathryn broke into his memories asking, “So you got together looking for other people, and you stayed together to spite other people?”

Chakotay’s voice was low as he said, “Yeah, I know.”

They sat in silence for a few more minutes.

“Who was she trying to find in you?” she finally asked.

Chakotay gave a half smile and tilted his head.

“Axum. Who else?”

Kathryn nodded.

“Yes, I remember him. She told me she loved him, but she didn’t know how to deal with it when she was awake. Then they lost their connection when we destroyed Unimatrix Zero. He seemed a fine young man.”

“He *is* a fine man,” Chakotay responded. “He arrived in the Alpha Quadrant about two months ago and came to Earth.”

Then he smiled his first real smile of the day.

“She got to spend the last weeks of her life with the man she loved. The man she was trying to find in me, well, he risked everything and found her instead.”

Kathryn leaned back in he chair, taking a long sip of her tea. 

“I am glad she got that, then,” she said. Her voice sounded far away.

Chakotay stared at her.

“That’s what she wanted to tell you about, about Axum. She and I had long ago figured out we were really just roommates. We stayed together out of spite, then out of inertia, then laziness, and finally because she needed someone to look after her as she got sicker. We cared for one another, but we didn’t love each other, not like that. And we spent years not talking about it, right up to the point Axum showed up.”

Chakotay leaned towards her, his voice lowering slightly.

“That’s when I hoped you would come, Kathryn. To see Seven and me admit our foolishness once and for all. To see her happy with him. And I’d hoped ….”

His voice trailed off.

“Hope is a dangerous thing, Commander. And very often a waste of time,” Kathryn said softly.

She set down her tea, stood, and walked to the deck railing. She leaned against it to face him.

“I am sorry for your loss, Chakotay, I really am. And I understand that you feel there are things you need to say to me, or that I need to hear. You have to understand, though, that there is nothing you can say that I don’t know.” 

She sighed.

“And you must also understand that whatever you came here for today, you aren’t going to find.”

Chakotay looked up at her.

“What do you think I want?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But you are looking at me with those eyes full of need for … something. Whatever it is, I don’t have it to give, I’m sorry.”

Chakotay shook his head, “All I am asking for is some time and a chance to try and make it right.”

“No.”

“No to time or no to a chance?” he asked, frowning.

“No to both,” she replied. “As I said, I don’t have it to give.”

Feeling himself getting a little angry, Chakotay stood to face her.

“You have it to give, you just don’t want to give it to me. I keep up with the fleet gossip, I know about the men you’ve been seeing over the years. This last one, the one you dumped a few months ago, what was he? Some great author? You gave up a four-month assignment to deep space for him. He got time, and apparently a number of chances, you won’t do the same for me?”

Kathryn’s eyes narrowed.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I owed you any kind of explanation for how I spend my time.”

Taking a step closer to her, he replied “Not for the time you spent – past tense – with him or anyone else. But an explanation as to why you won’t allow me the same courtesy? Yes, I would like an explanation.”

“You can’t be that dense,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Humor me.”

Kathryn turned towards the ocean.

“Daniel – that’s his name – is a lovely man. Smart, funny, conversational, attractive, the whole package. And he meant nothing to me. None of them have. If had felt anything for him, I wouldn’t have been with him. He filled a need, that’s all.”

She turned her head to look him in the eye.

“That’s all I have room for. I can’t give you what you want.”

Chakotay started to reach for her, but then pulled his hand back. 

He said, “I don’t know what you think I want to take from you. I need something from you Kathryn, yes, but only what I want to give you in return -- your friendship, your company, and your love.”

“Oh, Chakotay,” she said. “You have my love, you always will. But I can only give it to you from a distance, I can’t love you up close. You want me to take you fully into my heart and into my life. But I can’t do that and survive.”

He looked as though he was going to argue, but she continued.

“Do you remember the story you told me about the angry warrior all those years ago? You said I was your peace. And I think you could have been mine – and then it all went to hell.”

She took a step closer to him.

“I am not saying this to blame you, because I know you didn’t seek to hurt me. But something vital in me died when you left the ship with Seven. I told you hope is a dangerous thing. All those years, I existed on hope, and it was crushed.”

She looked at the ground, no longer able to look him in the eye.

Chakotay looked at the sky, then back at her, shaking his head.

“I killed your hope? That sounds a little melodramatic.”

Kathryn shrugged.

“Maybe it does. Maybe it *is* melodramatic. But it’s also true. When Justin died, the part of me that believed in fairy tales died. When I lost Mark, the part of me that believed I could find happiness by following the rules, it died, too. And when you left Voyager with Seven ….”

Kathryn took a long, shuddering breath.

“When you left Voyager with Seven, the part of me that was brave enough to trust another person with my heart, well, it died.”

She smiled apologetically.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but I think you were my last chance. And it didn’t work out. And that’s it.”

Chakotay let out the breath he had been holding and turned back to her.

“That’s it? That’s all there is? You say you will always love me but won’t even consider giving us a chance? After all we meant to one another, you will just give up?” he demanded angrily.

Kathryn walked over to him. He half-expected her to place her hand on his chest as she had done so many times on Voyager. Instead, she adjusted her quilt to cover more of her shoulders and kept her hands knotted in the fabric.

“If I let you back into my life, I would spend every day and every night waiting for the pain. The pain of your death, the pain of you falling in love with someone else, the pain of an indifference that could grow between us. I would spend *every moment* waiting for you to destroy me. I would feel the pain before it was even real. I wouldn’t ever be able to really love you, because I would never believe you really loved me.”

Then she looked at the place on his chest where she once would have laid her hand.

“It wouldn’t be love for me, Chakotay, it would be the worst kind of masochism. It would be torture.”

Chakotay took a step back from her, putting distance between them. He looked much like he did after B’Elanna slapped him because of Seven all those years ago.

“Do you really think so little of me?”

She raised her chin. “I honestly don’t know any more what I think of you. Maybe it’s that I think that little of me. I am certain that I would always be waiting for you to hurt me. That is my flaw. I am sorry if it affects you.”

Chakotay sat on the chair she had vacated.

“This is ridiculous. We had something real. I know I messed it up, but I also know you love me. I know I love you.”

When she didn’t respond, he laughed bitterly.

“I guess it would be easier to just keep screwing your way through the upper ranks of Federation society than to have to deal with us once and for all. There are probably one or two good-looking lieutenant commanders out there you haven’t slept with yet.”

After several seconds of silence, Kathryn said, “Tell me, Chakotay, how soon after you and Seven realized you didn’t actually love one another did you stop fucking her?”

He didn’t respond.

She sat on the chair across from him.

“I’ll say this and then I think you’ll need to leave. I won’t truly love again, not ever. I know that. And, yes, I am making a choice to *not* try and recapture what might have been. I will always love you, Chakotay, but our chance has passed. It’s over.”

He looked at her. In his eyes she thought she saw anger, sadness, love, betrayal, lust, confusion, and resignation. Every emotion she had felt the day he left Voyager with Seven.

She stood and, once again, pulled the quilt tighter around her.

“Do you like this blanket? Naomi Wildman made it for me about 10 years ago, when her mother got sick. She said working on it kept her sane during those long hours in the hospital with Sam.”

Chakotay stood.

“Kathryn ….”

“You see the material? She chose fabrics that reminded her of Voyager – the plaid has blue for Sam’s uniform and red for mine. She said the orange and gold stripes in these twill pieces reminded her of Neelix. The dark, dark blue flannel pieces are supposed to be the view out of viewport in their quarters on the ship.” 

Kathryn had stretched out her arm so Chakotay could see the variety of fabric squares Naomi had sewn together. And he really looked at it for the first time. Kathryn was right, all the colors of Voyager and their seven years in the Delta Quadrant were present. In every piece. 

“I told Naomi that this quilt was the best thing anyone had ever given me because she made it with such love. Love for me, yes, but love for everyone on Voyager, for the ship itself. Every stich she made was rooted in her love for all of us and that time. Her tears are sewn into this quilt, her tears for Sam as she lay dying.”

Kathryn pulled her arm back to wrap it protectively around herself.

“Don’t you see, Chakotay? This quilt is love. It’s love I trust.”

With that, she turned from him and walked into her house. The door shut quietly, then the lock clicked.

**Author's Note:**

> This was intended as a one-shot. But comments got my brain going, and it became a series.
> 
> I am not a huge fan of the series. There are parts I like -- C and K get to have some interesting conversations with other Voyagers in later installments. But on the whole, I don't love the result.
> 
> If you love a lengthy voyage that eventually gets somewhere a little better (and you might because, hey, VOYAGER), read the series and forgive me any convolutions I create.
> 
> But if you love unresolved angst (and you might because, hey, VOYAGER), you may want to take this story on its own.


End file.
